The Voting News Daily: Did Hoffman Win NY-23? Dominion scanner issues, Lancaster VA multiple machine malfunction
A ‘Post-Racial’ America? Not yet….On the law surrounding lines at polling places…Pay to play in New Jersey ?…Ex-first selectman has lawyer probe Middlebury CT voting, machine malfunction and some ballots photocopied…They don’t float: Clark County Indiana found out the hard way that if you store voting machines in a basement they may get water damage, we saw this happen in Gaston County NC after the 2004 election…. Meaningless recounts held in Carroll County Georgia and New Brunswick New Jersey on paperless e-voting machines, why even bother?…Post election audits in New York next week…
Did Hoffman Win NY-23? Does It Matter If He Did?…Hand counts needed in three Lancaster County Virginia precincts after multiple Diebold OS machines malfunctioned…
Oregon voters increasingly none-of-the-above…A handful of machines in Lewis, Seneca and Schuyler County New York froze due to memory problems…Pierce Council still hearts polling places, state’s last holdout for poll-site voting…Denmark Strips Away the Right to Privacy from Blind Voters…
All that and more in today’s voting news below…
CA: “Assessing California’s Hybrid Democracy”
…One lesson of this decade is that the devices of direct democracy remain too blunt and expensive as tools for anything but interstitial governance. From 2002 through 2008 voters were asked to approve 63 ballot measures – 43 voter initiatives and 20 ballot measures proposed by the legislature…Despite this flurry of activity, California’s governance appeared in shambles for much of the decade, http://electionlawblog.org/archives/014754.html
CT: Ex-first selectman has lawyer probe Middlebury voting *
MIDDLEBURY — Former First Selectman Edward B. St. John has hired an attorney to investigate ballot irregularities in the Nov. 3 election.
Dennis M. Buckley, a Waterbury-based attorney, is reviewing documents filed by poll workers and election officials for St. John.
St. John, who ran as a write-in candidate, raised concerns immediately following the election after he learned one of the voting machines had broken down Tuesday evening, forcing poll workers to switch to a separate machine to count the remaining ballots. Some of the ballots had been photocopied because election officials believed they had run out of the official ballots. It was later revealed that officials had more than 1,000 unused ballots locked in the registrar of voters’ office.
http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2009/11/12/news/local/449082.txt
GA: Recount confirms Rick Ford’s victory (recount by memory card-not a real recount)
Election Supervisor Patti Brown-Traylor and members of the Carroll County Board of Elections held a recount Tuesday because Ford’s margin of victory was less than 1 percent. The recount consisted of again running through the votes on computer memory cards from election night, as well as the early voting memory card ballots that were cast in the Office of Elections and Registration.
http://www.times-georgian.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Recount+confirms+Rick+Ford-s+victory%20&id=4430999-Recount+confirms+Rick+Ford-s+victory&instance=west_ga_news
MD: Cryptographic voting debuts
November 13, 2009
http://www.physorg.com/news177324972.html
IN: Clark County Commissioners: More costs pour in for Clark County
Replacing voting machines and shortfall from workers’ compensation pinch thin wallet
…Voting machines stored in the basement of the Clark County Government Building received water damage and the equipment will need to be fixed or replaced before the next election in May.